Last fall, she helped members of Sultana High School’s Gay Straight Alliance club bring in the ACLU of Southern California in response to what she and students saw as a pattern of discrimination against gay students and club members by teachers and administrators.

“My job is to help defend and teach my kids, and that’s what I did,” English teacher Julia Frost said Monday.

Frost’s legal team — Los Angeles-based Lambda Legal and Pasadena-based Traber and Voorhees — plans to sue the district in San Bernardino Superior Court Tuesday, alleging nine claims of harassment and discrimination. Her lawyers say the district failed to renew her contract in retaliation for helping students call attention to the treatment of gay and lesbian students on campus.

“This is the other shoe dropping, if you will,” attorney Bert Voorhees said.

Frost believes her treatment by administrators is part of the same pattern of behavior that her students complained about.

“All I want to do is teach and make a difference,” she said. “It’s surreal, me sitting here, not teaching for the first time in 16 years.”

Frost started at Sultana in 2011-12 school year and was asked to be a co-sponsor of the school’s popular GSA club.

“Almost immediately, I was singled out,” she said. “I was invited to meetings with administrators, asking about activities.”

Frost was summoned to meetings with administrators without the other teachers who oversaw the club. The fact that she was a lesbian was brought up in the very first one by Principal Larry Bird, she said.

“The only thing I can surmise, because it was just me and nobody else, was it was just because of my sexual orientation?” Frost said.

Students continued to be frustrated by administrators’ and teachers’ treatment of gay students. Things got dramatically worse in fall 2012, after students chose a lesbian homecoming queen who wore a suit, not a dress, to homecoming, she said.

“It was almost like a tornado,” Frost said. “It became just a toxic environment with kids as a whole.”

Frost helped students file formal complaints with the district about slurs and other discriminatory behavior by teachers and administrators at the school.

“These were comments made by adults,” Frost said. “It’s so much more hurtful” than comments made by students.

Sultana’s 2,036 students are largely supportive of gays and lesbians, according to her, and students were baffled by the lack of response to their complaints.

“They trust the adults in their life to do the right thing,” she said.

In February, Principal Larry Bird told her that her contract would not be renewed for the coming school year, she said. By law, public school districts must inform teachers before March 15 if their services will not be needed in the coming school year.

“I was stunned, because I had fantastic teacher evaluations” five times, until after the ACLU news broke, Frost said. That sixth review was highly critical, she said.

According to district officials, Frost was one of 13 probationary teachers whose contract was not renewed for the 2013-2014 school year. Although it’s legal in California to fire an un-tenured teacher without cause, Lambda Legal attorney Jennifer Pizer said, Frost was let go as a retaliatory move — which is illegal.

“This is consistent with the treatment of their (gay) employees and their students,” Pizer said.

Hesperia Unified would not comment Monday on the reason Frost’s contract was not renewed.

“It’s confidential and we can’t really say anything at this point,” Superintendent David McLaughlin said.

As for Frost, she wants to get back in to the classroom.

“I just want to teach,” she said. “I love the kids in the High Desert; they’re amazing. They deserve role models like them.”

Note: An earlier version of this story contained an error. Although Hesperia Unified did not issue Reduction In Force notices to any tenured teachers, Frost was one of 13 probationary teachers whose contract was not renewed for the 2013-2014 school year.

Beau Yarbrough wrote his first newspaper article taking on an authority figure (his middle school principal) when he was in 7th grade. He’s been a professional journalist since 1992, working in Virginia, Egypt and California. In that time, he’s covered community news, features, politics, local government, education, the comic book industry and more. He’s covered the war in Bosnia, interviewed presidential candidates, written theatrical reviews, attended a seance, ridden in a blimp and interviewed both Batman and Wonder Woman (Adam West and Lynda Carter). He also cooks a mean pot of chili.

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